The writing length parallel to a shooting script is a medium-sized short story, not a novel. Any longer on the page and you have to excise a lot of what made the book a book. Most well-written novels need 2 or 3 90 minute (remember those) films to comprehensively cover the actual material.

I am under the impression that there may be quite a bit that was not in the book (Gandalf and Thrain and the Necromancer) but was contemporary to happenings with the dwarves and Bilbo will be in the films, and also maybe some stuff that technically happened in between Hobbit and LOTR. I'm still hopeful that they find a way to surprise us and show what Aragorn and Gandalf were up to in that time frame.

It is an absolute travesty, and I am going to have to watch each movie, in their entirely, plus the director's cuts, plus making-of and outtakes, several times, in order to comprehend the full depth of depravity that Peter Jackson has wrought.

And then when my kids are older, I'll have them watch it, too, probably in the new super-high-def 3D format on UV-ray which I will use to justify the expense of re-vamping my entire entertainment system just so this wickedness may not be forgotten in the ages.